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Tag Archives: action movies

As time bends and brains melts in the heart of the “Quar,” we’re joined by longtime friend of the show and writer for Emmys.com, David Gutiérrez… and things get weird.

We get into everything from circumcising our children to wanna-be movie theater comedians. We try to understand the confusing relationship of rockstar film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and try to figure out when Bruce Willis and Harrison Ford stopped trying to be good at their jobs.

Finally, we try to retroactively fix the Rambo franchise (and action/revenge films in general) into something a bit less racist and burdened with conservative “white guy baggage.”

This month, we’re joined by Rebecca Friedman of Ask an Atheist to revisit the always thrilling and often problematic action-spy comedy that reunited Arnold with director James Cameron, True Lies!

To his wife Helen and their young daughter, Harry Tasker is a boring computer salesman, always away on one of his dull business trips. But Tasker has been living a double life as Harry Rinquest, globe-trotting secret agent and counter-terrorism operative for the secretive Omega Sector. But the lies separating Harry’s two lives crumble as Helen is suddenly thrust into a plot involving a Middle Eastern terrorist cell, stolen nuclear warheads, and a beautiful femme fatale. Now Harry must save the world, rescue his daughter and revive his troubled marriage.

We’re back. This time we’re traveling to the world behind the silver screen with artistRoz Townsend to dissect the meta-fictional cult action/comedy movie that many at the time considered Arnold’s first box office flop, Last Action Hero.

Teenager Danny Madigan is the world’s biggest fan of the Schwarzenegger-helmed Jack Slater series of action movies. When a magic ticket literally transports him into Slater’s cinematic universe, he finds himself in an over-the-top world where a combination of bad puns and giant explosions can always save the day. But when one of the movie’s villains steals the ticket and discovers his own nature as a fictional character, Danny and Jack must follow him back into the real world, a place where, suddenly, the bad guys can win.

“Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women.”

Crom, we have never prayed to you before. We have no tongue for it. Podcasts please you, Crom…so grant us one request: grant us a discussion with Greg Hatcher of the Atomic Junk Shop blog! Together we will travel back to an age undreamed of, and discuss the bloody fantasy epic that put Arnold Schwarzenegger on the map: 1982’s Conan the Barbarian!

An adaptation of the classic Robert E. Howard pulp hero, Conan of Cimmeria is a warrior, a thief and a slayer of men. After the slaughter of his parents and tribe by a doomsday snake cult, Conan is enslaved and made into a gladiator. Thus begins his quest for bloody vengeance with sword, and axe and his own bare hands.

“The guys we’re after are professional runners. They like speed and are guaranteed to go down the hardest possible way, so make sure you’ve got your funderwear on. We find ’em, we take ’em as a team, and we bring ’em back. And above all else, we don’t ever, ever, let them get into cars.”

Mike and Casey grab a couple of Coronas and fire up their NOS canisters, because it’s time to drive really, really fast. Joining us on this caper are screenwriter Matt Goodman and Matthew Amster-Burton of the Spilled Milk podcast.

Our mission, to dive into the adrenaline-pumping Fast and the Furious movie franchise, which has conquered the box office with some of the most over-the-top tributes to fast cars and badassery ever put on film.

We trace the series’ decade long evolution from a heist story about street racers to a globetrotting series of ensemble espionage thrillers that are a tribute to everything awesome and ludicrous.

In new podcast’s prologue, Mike and Casey dig into their mutual love of the cinematic works of 1980s action icon, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

We discuss the origin of this new project, and how we’re going to be joined by a guest, four times a year, for a movie by movie dissection of why this Austrian bodybuilder-turned-actor took Hollywood by storm with a combination of charisma, bulging biceps, and yes… absurd macho bullshit.

There are a lot of eye-rolling fictional cliches and tropes that we’re beyond tired of.

But some of them are like comfort food to us. We don’t dread them at all. We bask ourselves in their familiar glow. They put a smile on your face or give you a warm, tingly feeling, even though you’ve seen them a thousand times before.

And that prompts this month’s question:

“What fictional cliches are you never sick of, no matter how many times you see them?”